


Oath and Indenture

by PaxDuane



Series: By Writ and Lips [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Priest AU, kind of, negotiations where the only thing on your side is time, trauma aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: Kix got out of a cave-in with a debt weighing on his soul. Dogma's still unconscious and nothing he's done has worked. It doesn't help that there's some strange images he's been seeing, including a man in strange Mandalorian armor.
Relationships: CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix, CT-6116 | Kix & Original Character(s), Dogma (Star Wars) & CT-6116 | Kix
Series: By Writ and Lips [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805827
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	Oath and Indenture

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Kix isn't entirely sure if he's hallucinating through most of this, but he doesn't react to that being the case after Coric leaves. Also, some discussion and negotiation that appears very one-sided.

Kix is doing post battle inventory when he first sees the Mandalorian. He sees the armored being out of the corner of his eye. It’s not standard armor, like Jango Fett’s. No, instead the primarily white and silver armor has wing like protrusions from the shoulders. These wings are tipped in orange, flatter than 212’s golden orange.

He pauses, holopad in hand, and slowly turns to the Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian tilts his head, showing off painted wings on his helmet as well. Orange again, but with blood scarlet feathers as well.

Kix blinks and the Mandalorian disappears.

“What…” he murmurs.

“Kix?” Coric asks from the other side of the medical bay.

He pauses, mouth open to say…something. Anything. He shuts his mouth.

“Sit,” Coric says, crossing over. He checks Kix’s eyes, his reactions. “No, still nothing near a concussion. Should I take another brain scan?”

Kix’s shoulders slump. Since near the end of the battle, which had been a long two weeks of fighting, he had gotten caught in a cave system. He’d been with Jesse’s scouting crew, heading to take a few injured vode to camp while the scouts ferried information to Captain Rex and Commander Cody, when a missile hit about a klick away and made the ground shudder. The ground had broken, sending Kix and Jesse’s prize shiny, Dogma, into the caves.

He doesn’t remember a lot, and what he did was strange. Before he maintained consciousness again, all he remembered was Dogma trying to keep him awake, talking to someone else, and then…It was like he was turned into a holo. His hair had gone white, his eyes shiny blue and white, and his tattoo turned golden. Silver markings streamed out from the tattoo, making it almost look like an axe. Then, lightning.

Now, Dogma is curled up, unconscious himself in a cot. He hasn’t woken up, except to take water and broth and wince in pain, since the adrenaline of the battle wore off and dropped him to the floor.

None of the pain medicine Kix and Coric have tried has worked. The Captain isworrying. Even General Skywalker, General Kenobi, Commander Tano, and Commander Cody have come by to check on him.

Coric looks at the clock. “I’m going to run and get midmeal. Do you want me to pick up yours?”

Kix shakes his head. “I’ll get Jesse to. Go ahead.”

Coric leaves and Kix goes to sit next to Dogma, by now the only one left in the medbay. Every time he gets more than a moment, he sees those flashes of silver and gold and white on the younger clone’s face.

Dogma’s face scrunches and Kix reaches out to smooth the pain away with a touch.

“You want to help him,” a gravelly voice says from just over Kix’s right shoulder.

Kix jolts, turning to find the Mandalorian earlier staring at his vod'ika. “Who…”

The Mandalorian’s helmet turns from Dogma to Kix. “I can help you, to help him.”

That makes him pause. “What?”

The Mandalorian reaches up and takes off his helmet, showing scarlett patterned skin, orange-bronze hair, and feathered ears. And eyes that shine blue and white. “Trust me, vod. I can help you to help him.”

“What would I owe you?” he asks, cautious as he stands to put himself between this strange visitor and his vod’ika.

The Mandalorian smiles, showing off sharp teeth. “Smart. You’d owe me nothing, technically. But you need to know what taking this step will cost either way.” He steps closer, directly into Kix’s space. “You will no longer be the Republic’s, you will be mine. I will strip away all you think you know about yourself and leave only your soul.”

That makes Kix recoil. It’s not the Republic, that does it. It’s his soul. He can tell this being is being honest and exact, but… But what about Jesse? What about his vode?

The Mandalorian flashes his teeth again. “Who you love is very much a part of your soul, vod. But you should probably take the time to learn about what it means now that your blood can sing this loud. Your buir, your vod’ika here… They can help with that. Eventually, you’ll have to learn. But do you want it to be now? Or do you want to wait and hope that your buir will arrive soon and I will work with them instead?”

Behind them, Dogma lets out an unconscious whine. Kix spares a glance over his shoulder, then turns back to the Mandalorian. He holds out his hand. “I’ll do it.”

The Mandalorian clasps his wrist. Energy pours through Kix’s veins, leaving him gasping and stumbling back against Dogma’s cot. Once it’s over, though, he can tell where the Mandalorian…can tell where Yustbaar is. Inside of him. Symbols, wings and crossroads and rivers, flash before him. They take him different places.

Finally, it all settles. Yustbaar-and-Kix turn to Dogma, sees the electricity dancing off of his skin, and gather it up in hands with silver scars. The electricity bundles itself in a ball, which he crushes it further and further down until it’s grounded into nothingness.

Dogma’s features smooth, his body relaxes, and he lets out an unlabored breath.

Kix drops to his knees, breathless, as the energy of Yustbaar existing inside him disappears. He can’t quite catch his breath, until Dogma stirs and blinks blearily at him.

The shiny tugs him along until he’s lying on the cot too, caught up in the feeling of his little brother falling back asleep against him.

Jesse wakes them up a bit later, a tray with rations in his hand and a frown on his face.

“Everything okay?” he asks, looking between them. “Coric said you were going to call me about bringing food?”

Kix curses. He hadn’t had time before…everything.

Dogma snickers quietly, exhausted. “Fever broke,” he mutters to Jesse before burying his face back in Kix’s shoulder. “Want Jan’buir.”

Jesse stares. Then, he gapes. It’s unfairly attractive, Kix thinks. No one should look attractive while gaping.

He pulls Jesse down for a soft, brief kiss. “Sit with us?” he asks, feeling about as exhausted as Dogma sounds.

“Yeah,” Jesse says, shaking off his confusion with a dopey smile. He pulls up the chair that Kix had sat in earlier and knocks his forehead together with Kix’s. “So, fever?”

“Something like that,” Kix says, patting Dogma’s back. “Poor ik’aad,” he teases.

Dogma whines and looks up at them, mischief flashing across his face that Kix hasn’t seen in him before. “The poor ik’aad wants real food,” he says.

Jesse cackles and passes them the ration bars he brought in.

“Not too fast,” Kix cautions, “You haven’t eaten anything solid in…” In the doorway of the medical bay, Yustbaar shakes his helmeted head and laughs. “…In a few days. I guess one won’t hurt, just go at a normal pace.”

“I’d argue this isn’t real food,” Dogma says, flopping back against the cot as he unwraps the ration bar. “This is just a nutrient pack.”

Kix huffs. He never expected Dogma to be so snarky, even after Jesse first picked him up which implied some level of snark. Through the last few months, the kid has stayed on shaky ground. Jesse had apparently talked to Tup, his closest batchmate who Domino had militantly adopted, and found that Dogma had been on shaky ground for a long time.

It makes him think of the conversation a month or so ago at the Nautolan temple, when Jesse had asked what Kix would have named him.

“We’ll get real food when we’re back on Coruscant,” Kix promises, beating Jesse to the punch from the look on his riduur’s face. Then, in Mando'a, he says, “Okay, cunning child?”

Dogma flinches and stares at him, eyes wide. Then he drops the ration bar and burrows back into Kix’s shoulder.

“Vod’ika?” Jesse asks, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

“M’okay,” comes Dogma’s muffled and somewhat teary reply. “Want Jan’buir.”

Jesse pauses a long moment. “Wait, _Jango_? You want Jango?”

Yustbaar’s cackle, Kix notes, is a lot like Jesse’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Yustbaar -- from goyust (road), yustapir (river), baar (body), and baar'ur (medic). My original Mandalorian god of healing, travelers, and the line between life and death. Unlike other Mando'kar'ade (the word I've made to refer to the Mandalorian pantheon), he's not visibly Taung under his armor. Considering the relationship the Mando'kar'ade have with other cultures, he might come from one of those.
> 
> No one should ever be surprised I ship Jessix. They cute. Also I feel like that would be thing Kix would focus on, in his talk with Yustbaar. Love, of more than just Jesse, is incredibly important to him. Also, before anything else, I should make it clear that Kix is the only one I have in my notes as even being able to be made a Priest. ...He may have died, or nearly died. I'm really relating him and Dogma more as berserkers than being explicitly special compared to their brothers. Not even Jango thinks they're "better" than their brothers. They all just have different tools.
> 
> Mm. And because of the circumstances, Kix's negotiations with Yustbaar do take a lot from the archetypal "Deal with the Devil" even though there are several deviations and this isn't typical for Priests.
> 
> We also have more hints at Dogma's real name, somewhat hidden because I didn't want to make it too easy. Also, a few other things both about Dogma and another god who you'll meet soon. Vote! Which do you want first: the story about Dogma's tattoo or the angsty Jango's POV focused on Dogma's childhood? What other kinds of things might you want to see? I'm still offering a full prompt fill for anyone who gets real close to Dogma's real name before I post either of the follow-ups (which will either be Wednesday or next Saturday). Otherwise, if I see something I like, I'll gift it to you.


End file.
